November 28, 2012

Mocktails with your Sweetheart!

Since I’ve been pregnant, James and I have had fun discovering new nonalcoholic drink recipes. So – for those of you who are expecting or don’t drink… here is a quick and easy date to cook up some fun in the kitchen with your sweetheart when you are in the mood for something besides water or the classic Shirley Temple during this Holiday season.

Your date begins with a tasting party! I set the scene by leaving this little invitation for James. I spied a downloadable template at Paper Crafts Magazine that I knew could be adapted to fit a Holiday theme. After creating the card base, I cut out some fun red paper to add to the drink shape and attached a little banner I made with a rubber stamp. Small red gemstones instantly became “berries” next to a punched out Holly leaf.

Your next task: research drink recipes and narrow your choices to 2-3 mocktail concoctions! I looked for recipes that didn’t have a lot of artificial ingredients and were relatively healthy (think more Vitamin C and fruit juices!). Here were the 3 contenders for our night: mock champagne, Blackberry Lemonade, and the NYC Maternitini. Click on the drink name to view the specific recipe.

When I googled, “Best Mocktail,” this drink from AllRecipes.com appeared at the top of the list with rave reviews. I was eager to try it since it only really required 3 ingredients and would be a perfect way to toast the New Year in December!

The verdict: We thought this drink had potential. However, the pineapple flavor was a bit strong for my taste. Since we didn’t add the ginger-ale ice ring on our small taste test, our proportions might have been a bit skewed. For a smaller batch, I would increase the ginger-ale and decrease the pineapple juice.

Blackberry Lemonade

When James and I went out to dinner for our anniversary recently, I ordered this drink off their mocktail menu. It was absolutely delicious! I immediately asked our waiter, “What’s in this!?” with the hope I could recreate it at home. It couldn’t be more easy: just add 5-6 muddled blackberries to your favorite lemonade mix. I will definitely be making this again!

It looks like it would be a great source of inspiration for any Holiday parties that you might be hosting in the next month… or a fun stocking stuffer for all those mama’s-to-be!

After your tummy is filled with a delicious treat, snuggle up with your sweetheart to a classic Christmas movie. We had a hard time deciding between Love Actually, Elf, and The Holiday. In the end, The Holiday won out- I just loved some of Kari’s ideas of how to flirt and turn up the romance while watching this movie- check out her tips in this post. Cheers to creating a fun date night at home!

Oh, and don’t forget to enter our AMAZING giveaway we have going on right now!! If you would love a brand new iPad, Nikon camera, iPad mini, laptop, OR KitchenAid mixer… then this is the giveaway for you! We JUST kicked this off yesterday. Click the image below to head on over to that post!

LOVE this idea! My hubby and I aren’t big alcohol-drinkers, so this is would be so fun for us — and without the expense of alcohol, too! Most of these ingredients we already have on hand. Thanks so much for sharing with us!

This post spurred an idea for a quick date last night. I texted my husband and told him we were going on a picnic when he got home. I went to the store and bought the ingredients for the mock champagne, as well as some other picnic dinner food. Then I took us up to a hill that overlooks our city. We parked, got in the back seat of the car and had a wonderful picnic overlooking the beautiful lights. It was so nice to visit over our little dinner without the distraction of the TV or computers, or the noise and crowds of a restaurant. Cheap, fast, easy and didn’t require dressing up. It helped too that our kids are all self sufficient and I didn’t need to find a babysitter.